by K'wan
• • •
Animal and Ashanti got out of the car at the same time, guns dawn, and keeping one eye on the street. When they reached the front of the car, they found a human head lying just under the front bumper.
“What the fuck?” Animal frowned.
“It’s Kahllah’s signal,” Ashanti said. He looked across the street just in time to see her slip inside the tattoo parlor. “Game time,” he told Animal and jogged across the street.
Animal was about to take off after him, when he remembered his roll in the caper. “No wet work,” he mumbled to himself. All Animal could do was lean against the truck, brooding, while Ashanti made his way around the back of the building and into the action.
FIVE
KAHLLAH SLITHERED THROUGH THE DARKENED tattoo parlor like a shadow. Through the front window she could see Ashanti flash across en route to take up his position in the back. For all Ashanti’s character flaws, he was a sharp and willing apprentice.
At the back of the parlor there was a door that led to the apartment upstairs. It was an older model door, with a small window at the top of it. Kahllah removed what looked like a car antenna with a dental mirror on the end from her vest, and extended it. She slowly raised the mirror so that she could see what or who was behind the door. It was a narrow stairwell, barely big enough to fit more than one person at a time. In such close quarters, her cleavers would be useless, as there wasn’t enough room to swing them effectively. At the top of the stairs was a man, sitting in a chair reading a magazine. She didn’t see a gun, but she knew he had one. The way the chair was turned, he would be able to see anyone who came through the door and get the drop on them if necessary. She was at a disadvantage, but it wasn’t the first time and surely wouldn’t be the last. Her attack had to be swift and precise.
Kahllah used one hand to yank the door open, while letting the other slide to her thigh, where she kept a dagger strapped. The man at the top of the stairs noticed her just as she flung the blade. The dagger whistled end over end and found a comfortable spot in the man’s throat. Kahllah’s feet moved swiftly, yet silently up the stairs, catching the man’s body before it could fall and laying it gently on the stairs. After retrieving her dagger from his throat, she moved to the apartment door.
She placed her ear to the door and listened for a few moments. She could hear the sounds of music playing softly, but no voices, which she found unusual. If Klein was showcasing children to clients, she expected to hear at least some type of chatter. Using the tip of her dagger, she quickly picked the lock and slipped inside the apartment. The living room was dimly lit, with just a few lamps turned on here and there. In the middle of the floor there was a pile of hastily discarded clothes, those of a grown man’s and a child’s. Kahllah’s heart raced, fearful that she had arrived too late to stop Klein from whatever he had planned for his child hostage.
She could hear the sounds of voices coming from one of the back bedrooms. The first was that of a man, the second of a child presumably whimpering. Kahllah crept across the slick linoleum floor of the hallway, towards the bedroom where she heard the voices. She took her time, checking each room as she passed, making sure there were no surprises laying in wait for her. As she got closer, they became louder. There was definitely a child in danger. Drawing both her cleavers, Kahllah kicked the bedroom door open and rushed inside. She had expected to see some horrific scene of a child being violated, but there wasn’t a child in sight.
Sitting on the other side of the room, in a chair near the window, was her mark, Thad Klein. Klein was dressed as usual in an immaculately tailored suit, with his dark hair perfectly combed. His manicured hands were folded over his knee. Playing on the television in front of him was a fetish pornography DVD. That’s where the voices had been coming from.
Klein didn’t even bother to turn his head to acknowledge her presence. He raised his hand for silence, and stared intently at the television. The actors on the screen were nearing the climax of the scene. Klein watched as if in a trance; the sight of him and what was playing on the screen disgusted Kahllah. With a swing of one of her cleavers, Kahllah severed the cord and the screen went black.
Klein looked disappointed. “And it was just about to get to the good part,” he shook his head. “No worries, I’ve seen that particular film over a dozen times and I know how it ends.”
“Speaking of ends, yours is at hand, pedophile,” Kahllah told him. The filters in her mask distorted her voice and made it sound almost mechanical.
Klein slowly rose to his feet, regarding her. “Not quite what I expected, considering your reputation,” Klein said in an easy tone. “I don’t supposed I could offer to double whatever price has been put on my head to get you to turn around and act like we’ve never seen each other, could I?”
“No amount of money could make me turn a blind eye to your evil, Klein. You are the devil and as is the will of my Lord, I will send you back to hell for what you’ve done to those children.” Kahllah told him.
“I had a feeling you would say as much, so how about we go with offer number two,” Klein said with a sinister edge to his voice. “I fill you full of holes and go down in history as the guy who took out the Black Lotus.”
When Klein had called her by name, an alarm had gone off in Kahllah’s head. She was about to move on Klein when she noticed several red dots magically appear all over her body. She cut her eyes to the doorway, already knowing what she would see. There were several armed men with automatic weapons trained on her. She’d checked the rooms and didn’t see anyone, so they had to have come into the apartment after she did. They were expecting her. It was a trap and Kahllah had walked right into it.
• • •
Standing around and doing nothing was driving Animal insane. He was used to being in the thick of things and riding the pine wasn’t sitting well with him. Every few seconds he found himself looking up at the window, wondering how things were going with Kahllah and her kill. He wanted to be involved in the bloodshed so bad that he could literally taste it, but he had promised Gucci. It was bad enough that he had rode out with Kahllah and Ashanti, but spilling blood would only make things worse. He would do his part as the lookout and collect his money, but he didn’t like it. Animal sat on the hood of the truck and fired up a cigarette. From his elevated vantage point, he could see down the entire strip. On the next block he saw the transgender prostitute Ricky and his crew, trying to flag down tricks. A van pulled up at the curb and Ricky approached the passenger’s side window. He could see Ricky saying something to someone in the car and pointing in the direction of the building he had sent Kahllah into. Suddenly, Animal got an eerie feeling in the pit of his gut. The van pulled away from the curb and sped down the street. It screeched to a halt in front of the tattoo parlor, and several armed men spilled out and rushed inside. They had been set up.
Animal knew that Ashanti was in the back, so he was probably oblivious as to what was going on. He was about to grab the radio Kahllah had given him to warn her when he heard the gunshot. He didn’t have time to think, so he grabbed the leather holster, holding his Pretty Bitches, from the backseat and reacted. “Forgive me, Gucci,” Animal whispered, before drawing his guns and charging the tattoo parlor.
• • •
Over all her years of service to the Brotherhood, Kahllah had an almost flawless track record. Even in her Initiate years of training, she had always been at the top of her class. She had been raised for the sole purpose of taking lives, so she had an edge over the other Initiates, who had to be taught to embrace death. She had no children, no family and no ties to anything in the outside world. Her ability to detach herself from all emotions and focus on nothing but the job was what made her such an efficient killer. That night she allowed her focus to slip and found herself on the wrong end of a death threat.
“You can drop the blades,” Klein ordered her. When she looked like she was thinking about making a move, Klein nodded to one of his men. The man sho
t the ground near Kahllah’s foot. “The next one is in your head. Now drop the blades.” Kahllah reluctantly threw her blades to the ground. “That’s better, now we can talk,” he moved closer to get a better look, but was careful not to move too close. Even outnumbered and outgunned, the Black Lotus was still deadly. “Nothing to say for yourself? I hear you like to quote scripture before you kill your victims. What does your good book say about situations like this?” he taunted her.
“When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” She quoted Corinthians.
“And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Klein asked.
“It means your victory will be a short one, pedophile. Even if I fall here today, another flower will grow in my place. You will be a hunted man for all your days,” Kahllah told him.
“Somehow, I doubt that. Everybody who pats you on your back isn’t your friend. I think you’ve overestimated your value, doll,” Klein chuckled.
Klein continued to talk, but Kahllah was deaf to everything else he said. It was his previous statement that sent a chill down her spine. He called her doll, meaning he knew she was a female. Very few outside of the Brotherhood knew that the Black Lotus was a female. If Klein had that information then her betrayal went far deeper than just Ricky.
“I asked if you had any last words before we made a mess of you?” Klein repeated the question.
“Yes,” Kahllah said in an all too calm voice. “So does my lord speak with my voice, he smites with my hands!” Kahllah whipped her hands out and two thin chains shot from her wrists. The steel hooks on the ends of them sank into the flesh of Klein’s left arm and his collarbone. Kahllah yanked the chains, snapping Klein to her like he was at the end of a rubber band. Wrapping a length of the chain around his neck, Kahllah kept Klein’s body between her and the shooters like a human shield. “You boys might be good, but I don’t think any of you are good enough to take me down without hitting your employer. Now make a path and let me through,” she ordered. The men looked hesitant, so she tightened the chain around Klein’s neck, causing the hook to tear at the flesh over his collarbone.
“Do what she says!” Klein yelped.
The men stood down, and opened up a space for Kahllah to walk through. One of them looked like he was thinking about playing hero, but Klein’s pleading eyes told him to hold his position. She made sure to keep Klein close and her back to the wall. Kahllah slipped past the men and was now in the hallway and headed to the door. She was just passing the kitchen when something smashed into the side of her head. The world swam and for a minute, things went black. When Kahllah was finally able to regain her wits, she was lying on her back with several guns trained on her and Klein was free.
Klein hovered over her, bloodied and angry. “You filthy cunt,” he kicked her in the face, knocking Kahllah’s mask off. “Get this pretty bitch up,” he ordered his men. Two of the gunmen pulled Kahllah to her feet and pinned her to the wall. “First, I was just going to stick to the plan and kill you,” Klein undid his belt, “but now I’m going to fuck you first.”
When Klein was close enough, Kahllah raised both her legs and jackknifed the heels of her boots into his chest, sending him crashing into the wall behind him. She had been trying to break his ribs to puncture his heart, but because she was being held at an awkward angle, her aim was off, and she only succeeded in knocking the wind out of him. One of the men holding her punched her in the face twice, dazing her and taking enough of the fight out of her for two more men to come over and secure her legs.
When Klein was able to catch his breath, he stalked over to Kahllah, smiling, with his wrinkled pink dick in his hand. “You’re a fighter, huh? I like it when they fight. Strip this bitch,” he told his men.
When Kahllah saw the look in Klein’s eyes, she was transported to her years amongst the slave traders and the things they did to her. She would rather die than have a man force himself on her. Kahllah managed to get one of her arms loose. The man who had been holding her was taken totally by surprise, when she jammed her fingers into his eyes and blinded him. She would’ve torn his throat out next, had two more men not come to grab her arm. Kahllah struggled against them while they tore away her belts and harnesses, trying to get her body suit off, but there was little she could do. One of them took a knife and cut the lower half of her body suit down the middle, exposing her shaved vagina.
Klein moved close enough to where she could smell the cheap scotch on his breath. Klein kept his eyes locked on Kahllah’s while he forced his fingers inside her. He smiled when he saw her eyes twitch, and forced his fingers deeper inside her. Kahllah’s eyes welled with tears, but she would not cry. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Klein removed his slick fingers from her vagina and smelled them, before slipping his fingers into his mouth and sucking her juices off.
“Sweetest flower I’ve ever tasted,” Klein breathed over her lips.
“And it’ll also be the last flower you ever taste,” a voice called from the door.
Klein turned and saw a wild haired young man standing in the doorway, holding two very big pistols. His lips parted into a sneer, and Klein could see the faintest hints of diamonds across his teeth. It was a small gesture, but it made Klein’s bowels shift. The Black Lotus was a dangerous killer, but the young man who had entered the apartment was death himself.
Klein had just thrown himself to the floor when Animal squeezed the triggers on his guns. Just above him, the heads of the men who had been holding Kahllah’s arms, exploded like rotten tomatoes. The remaining gunmen abandoned their duties of restraining the Black Lotus, and drew their weapons. Animal moved like a blur, and ducked under the first wave of shots, sliding on his knees across the linoleum floor, firing one gun at a time. While the gunmen’s shots were wild and frantic, Animal’s were timed and precise. He laced two more of the gunmen, piercing their heart and small intestines, respectively. Animal skidded to a stop next to one of the men he had seen holding Kahllah’s leg. He wasn’t quite dead yet, but it was an easy fix. Animal dumped two bullets in his face for good measure.
Klein was scrambling down the hallways towards one of the bedrooms. He was firing a .32 blindly over his shoulder, doing more damage to the ceiling and walls than anything else. Animal had a clear shot at his head, but Kahllah stopped him.
“He’s mine!” Kahllah told him and took off after Klein.
Animal wasn’t sure what had happened to Kahllah before he’d arrived, but the feral look in her eyes frightened him. Not sure what else to do, he followed her.
Kahllah rounded the corner into the bedroom, and ducked just as a bullet hit the door above her head. She went low, dropping into a roll, she retrieved one of her discarded cleavers, and popped up directly in front of Klein. He raised his gun to get off another shot, but she effortlessly knocked the gun away, and held his arm in a death grip. Kahllah held him, immobile, staring at his fingers as if they were something vile. With a swipe of her cleaver she removed every finger on his hand. Klein screamed in pain with each snip. He struggled to free himself from her grip, but Kahllah had a firm hold on him.
“Worm,” she twisted his hand, breaking his wrist, “pedophile,” she twisted again, snapping his elbow, “rapist,” she dislocated his shoulder. Klein tried to fall to the ground, but she yanked him back to his feet by his useless arm, drawing a whimper from him. “For your crimes against those children, you have been sentenced to die, but for your crimes against me, I condemn you to a lifetime of suffering.”
Animal had seen and done some gruesome things in his lifetime, but if you stacked them all together they’d still come up short measured against what Kahllah did to Klein in that bedroom. She retrieved her harnesses from the hallways and came back into the room and knelt beside Klein. From one of the pouches she removed a small butane torch and began superheating the edge of one of the cleavers. She needed the blade to be h
ot so that Klein’s wounds would cauterize and he wouldn’t bleed out before she was done with him. Kahllah started with his eyes, bringing them to a boil in his sockets. She took her time with the rest of him, cutting away little pieces here and there, while he wailed and begged for mercy. By the time Kahllah had finished with him, Klein was laying on the ground in pieces like a Mr. Potato Head toy, barely breathing, but still alive and in a great deal of pain.
When Kahllah turned to Animal, she looked like something out of a horror movie. Her face and what were left of her clothes were covered in blood. The cleaver was still clutched firmly in her hand, dripping with blood. Her eyes had retained some of their composure, but the anger still burned brightly. A lone tear ran down her cheek, tracing a line through the sea of crimson.
Animal could feel her pain all the way from where he was standing. He knew what it was like to be violated, and his heart ached for her. “Kahllah – “ he began, but she cut him off.
“There is nothing to say,” she said just above a whisper. “We will never speak of this . . . ever. Do you understand?”
“Yeah, you got that,” Animal agreed. His eyes roamed over to what was left of Klein. He looked like a lab experiment gone wrong, limbless and wriggling around on the floor. A wet gurgling sound emitted from his throat. Whether he was trying to scream or speak, Animal couldn’t tell because Kahllah had cut out his tongue. “I should finish him off. It’s wrong to leave him here like this,” he aimed one of his Pretty Bitches at Klein, ready to put him out of his misery.
“No,” Kahllah said sternly. “I want him to live so that he may carry my message to those who have sought to betray me. The Black Lotus is not so easily taken out.”